The Borderkind (39 page)

Leicester Grindylow laughed happily. “Well, they’re friends, aren’t they, mates? Friends.”

The winter man nodded. “Indeed.”

The trio of thin, cloaked figures beneath the ironwood trees floated just a bit above the ground, and as the jaguar-men approached they stepped out into the corona of gaslight at the base of the palace steps, the high tower of the king of Yucatazca rising up into the night sky above.

They were Mazikeen.

Cheval quickened her pace. “He called his brothers after all.”

The winter man flowed forward, all of his former doubts dispelled. The Mazikeen would keep to themselves as always and so he did not bother to stop and welcome them or thank them, he simply kept going, past the Mazikeen sorcerers, past the jaguar-men, up the stairs toward the palace doors.

A huge cry and furor rose behind him as Borderkind and Lost Ones alike rushed upward in his wake. Frost reached the top of the stairs before any of the others, and as they began to catch up and gather around him, the guards blocked the doors, drawing their swords.

“Turn back, or face the wrath of the king’s guard!” shouted one of the sentries.

Frost darted at him, tempted to drive sharp ice fingers through his brain. But this man was not the enemy. He was merely an obstacle. He knocked the guard’s sword aside and snatched the man up by the throat, searing his flesh with cold.

“I am Frost of the Borderkind, and on behalf of all my kin, I have come to see the king.”

CHAPTER
20

T
he cold mountain winds blew across the cradle formed by the meeting of those three high peaks. As the sand skittered across the grass and across the bones of Detective Halliwell, it began to snow.

Kitsune raised her hood and from its shadow peered out at the activity around her. The Sandman’s pagoda castle—so reminiscent of the styles of old Japan, from which her own legend hailed—remained standing. The doors had been torn away. She kept close to the castle, kept still, and simply watched.

Oliver and his sister celebrated their reunion. He fussed over her, making certain she was not badly injured. The captain of the soldiers had turned out to be Damia Beck, the new advisor to King Hunyadi. After attempting to murder Oliver and Kitsune, the Atlantean advisor to the king of Euphrasia had been removed and executed.

Captain Beck gave Collette Bascombe a change of clothes and her own cloak, so that after a few moments out of sight she had emerged clothed in a dark, heavy tunic and too-long trousers and a black cloak with the crest of Hunyadi upon it. When Collette returned, she thanked Captain Beck profusely, thanked all of Hunyadi’s soldiers who had ridden with Julianna and the late detective Halliwell to aid her.

Over the course of these long minutes—slices of eternity—Kitsune had been forced to witness a second reunion. With Collette seen to, Oliver had turned his attentions to Julianna, who though only human was far more beautiful than Kitsune had imagined. Her long auburn hair gleamed darkly in the celestial light. Tall and slender, she had a formidable air about her.

Kitsune could have killed her in seconds, torn out her throat and had Julianna’s blood dripping down her chin before any of them could react. She was only human, after all.

But, hidden within her fur cloak, she only watched as Oliver and Julianna held one another close and cooed apologies and promises. Her ears were keen, and she heard most of what they said to one another, heard Oliver’s regret and the passionate crack in his voice as he rasped his love to her.

At long last the Bascombes—the Legend-Born—and Julianna said their good-byes to Captain Beck and her soldiers and came back to the massive open doors of the sand castle, where the wind whistled in the vast dark hollow of the place.

“You said we can pass through the Sandman’s castle here and come out in any of his other castles, right?” Oliver asked.

His eyes were alight with new passion and hope and courage.

Kitsune bared her sharp little teeth. “That’s right.”

Oliver looked at his sister and his fiancée, and they nodded their consent before he turned to Kitsune again.

“Then we ought to be going to Yucatazca now, don’t you think? Whatever lies Frost may or may not have told, I still believe he is my friend, that he’s trying to do his best. And he kept his vow to me, to find Professor Koenig. It’s time for me to keep my vow. Captain Beck and her soldiers can’t come with us. The treaty between the Two Kingdoms forbids it. But whatever help we can be to the Borderkind, we’re going to stand with them.”

Kitsune stared at him, eyes narrowed. She smiled, and wondered if he even saw the edge to it. “And while you are in Palenque, if you and Collette can earn a pardon from the king, all the better.”

“True enough.”

But a look of dark and painful regret passed between Oliver and Julianna then. Collette, looking on, glanced away as though crestfallen.

Kitsune understood. Even if Oliver and Collette could earn the pardon they sought, and were able to travel back to their own world without fear of persecution from beyond the Veil, Julianna would have to remain behind. Unlike the Bascombes, she had not been carried here by a Borderkind. She had touched the Veil.

Julianna would be trapped here forever, one of the Lost Ones.

What would Oliver do now?

The irony was cruel.

Kitsune had the cunning heart of a fox and the mischievous soul of a trickster. Love had touched her for the first time in centuries and now it had curdled into bitterness. She had always hoped and believed that Oliver would come to love her, in time, but Julianna’s arrival had ruined any chance of that. Her heart felt dark and heavy now. She saw Julianna’s misery and Oliver’s pain, and she relished it.

“Let’s go, then,” the fox-woman said. “Frost and the others need our help.”

They all spared a final glance and a wave at Captain Beck and her soldiers, who had mounted their horses and gathered now by the castle doors to see them off. Then Kitsune led the way back into the howling shadows of the Sandcastle, into the darkness, shielding her eyes from the windblown grit, nursing her bitterness at the truth that she had learned.

For she understood now that Oliver could never have been hers, no matter what he may have allowed her to think.

He had hurt the woman in her, quite deeply.

But it was the fox in her that now wished very much to hurt him back.

For a moment, Blue Jay allowed himself to think that it was all going to go smoothly, that Ty’Lis was not prepared for their arrival. Lost Ones and Yucatazcan Borderkind surrounded the palace in the circle at the center of Palenque. In the flickering gas and electric lights they were a sea of curious and angry faces. When Frost gripped the sentry by the throat at the top of the stairs, they were all with him.

The other guards attempted to intervene, but Li snapped at them and sketched a line through the air. Where his hand passed, the air itself lit on fire, a streak of flame suspended above the ground. He held one hand at his side and fire spilled from his palm, forming itself into the shape of an enormous tiger. He staggered with the effort, no longer the legend he had once been. The blazing tiger-thing opened its maw and a gout of flame roared out.

The guards kept still.

Frost released the guard he’d throttled. The man reached up to touch the frozen flesh of his throat where the winter man had clutched him.

“Let them pass,” he rasped.

The three Mazikeen were arranged around Frost as though they were his honor guard and several of the sentries stared at them and whispered to one another. One in particular, an imposing soldier whose face was scarred from a lifetime’s survival in battles that had claimed others, watched the Mazikeen with cold eyes.

“You must be announced,” the scarred sentry said, and it was clear from his tone that he would not be so easily intimidated.

Cheval Bayard threw back her silver hair. “Then announce us.”

The grim, scarred man nodded, took one last long look at Frost and the Mazikeen, and then turned to hurry into the palace. The two massive doors had been built large enough for gods and giants to enter the palace, but given the rarity of such occasions—and that the king was a god in name only—there was a pair of smaller doors set into the larger. The scarred sentry disappeared through one of those and it slammed shut behind him.

Cheval seemed pleased with herself, but she had a reckless air about her, as though she no longer cared what fate held for them all. Perhaps, with Chorti dead, that was the truth.

Beside her, and several steps below Frost, Grin smiled.
Soon,
his expression seemed to say, they would have their answers. They weren’t alone now. Instead they were surrounded by others demanding the same answers, demanding justice.

Blue Jay remained several steps below the others, watching the crowd, watching the skies, watching the palace itself.

This did not feel right.

Only a fool would have allowed himself to think it would be this simple. He cursed his own momentary lapse.

“Frost,” Blue Jay said, moving up the steps past Cheval and Grin, pushing between two of the Mazikeen. The eyes of the sentries watched him carefully. “This isn’t going to be—”

The winter man looked at him with a weary, knowing gaze.
Too easy.

People began to shout at the foot of the stairs. A woman screamed. Blue Jay spun. A sentry reached for him and with a single, solid kick he sent the man tumbling off of the stairs, turning end over end until he struck the cobblestoned street far below.

Soldiers flooded into the plaza around the palace, streaming out of buildings on the main thoroughfare and from every alley. Doors in the base of the palace banged open and hundreds of armed men erupted from the bowels of the massive structure.

“Bloody Hell!” Grin shouted.

The boggart grabbed hold of the nearest sentry, twisted, and hurled the man down the stairs, even as some of their allies raced up after them.

A light, damp snow whistled and eddied around those who had gathered at the top of the palace steps. The winter man ran at the huge doors, sliding through the air, driven by an arctic breeze. A guard grabbed at him and Frost chopped the edge of his hand down—honed to a razor blade—and sheared the man’s arm off at the biceps.

Screams and jets of blood gouted as the sentry staggered back. Cheval grabbed the nearest sentry and drew him to her, mouth tight over his. He struggled and kicked as she lifted him off the ground. When she dropped him, his head tilted to one side and water spilled from his gaping lips. She had drowned him with a kiss.

Two sentries came for Blue Jay. He chanted a few short, guttural syllables deep in his throat, moved his feet in time with a rhythm only he could hear, and as he did he spun, raising his arms. The night blurred with an indigo shimmer beneath his arms, and the magical wings he’d summoned knocked the two men back, cutting them both, nearly slicing the nearest of the two sentries in two.

With an earth-shuddering shriek of metal and wood, the god-doors swung inward, yawning wide, creating an entrance almost forty feet across.

Blue Jay spun and stared past Frost and the Mazikeen at the two towering figures that stood in the open doorway, backlit by torchlight in the palace’s entry chamber.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

The giants were the most hideous things he’d ever seen, their greenish-white flesh marking them instantly as Atlantean. Blue Jay had never heard of Atlantean giants, but that did not seem to matter now. Particularly as the giants were not alone. Dozens of Yucatazcan soldiers charged from the entry chamber onto the stairs, and there were dozens more behind them.

The three Mazikeen surged forward, moving so swiftly they passed Frost, and joined hands. The night blurred around them and a ripple of golden light speared forth, creating a wedge that drove through the midst of the guards, between the two giants, and thrust them all aside. The magic of the Mazikeen had opened an alley amongst their enemies.

Frost glanced back at Blue Jay.

The trickster waved him on. They both knew there was only one way to end all of this, and that was with the death of Ty’Lis or King Mahacuhta, if indeed the Atlantean sorcerer had acted on the king’s orders. In the midst of battle, it would be impossible for them all to reach the royal chambers.

But
one
…perhaps.

The winter man raced through the alley of shimmering golden light. Sentries tried to attack him, but the magic of the Mazikeen kept them back. In moments, Frost had disappeared within the palace’s vast entry chamber. The last glimpse Blue Jay had of the winter man was of him swirling into a storm of wind and sleet.

The heat had drained Frost. In his weakened state, Blue Jay wondered how far he would get.

The winter man was lost in the crush of soldiers coming out of the palace. Down in the plaza there were shouts and cries as the Lost Ones and the Borderkind of Palenque were attacked by the king’s guard. A single glance told Blue Jay that his worst fears were being realized. Far too many of those who had followed along in support were being driven out of the plaza, back into the maze of the city’s streets, back to their homes.

Even some of the southern Borderkind were fleeing.

Fools. We can win this,
he thought. Whoever had sent the Myth Hunters had to be destroyed, but even without that final victory, they could still win. The king’s guard were human. The Atlantean giants were the only legendary creatures amongst their enemies. If all of the Borderkind would stand and fight—

“Filthy myth,” a voice said.

Blue Jay spun and saw a sword slicing the air toward his neck. He ducked the blade with the quickness and luck of a trickster, grabbed his attacker’s wrist, and twisted it, snapping the bone. The soldier screamed and Blue Jay hauled him close.

“Thanks for the warning, friend,” he said.

Then he blinked in surprise.

The sentry had greenish-white skin, like the giants. With his colorful leather armor and helmet he had been lost amongst the others—amongst the ordinary human soldiers—but this man was no Lost One. He was Atlantean.

Grimacing in pain, the Atlantean sentry jerked in Blue Jay’s grasp. A sliver of pain shot through the trickster’s abdomen and raced all through his right side. He glanced down and saw the Atlantean’s free hand, and the dagger with which the sentry had stabbed him.

Blue Jay snarled, reached around to grab the back of the Atlantean’s helmet, and rammed his forehead into the man’s face, crushing his nose and cracking his skull. The trickster’s long hair fell across his face. He thrust the dead soldier away, the dagger sliding out of his wound, still clutched in the Atlantean’s hand. Warm blood dripped down his hip. Blue Jay shook his hair—and the feathers tied in it—away from his face. One of the feathers was flecked with Atlantean blood.